ReadWrite - monetizationhttp://readwrite.com/tag/monetization
enCopyright 2015 Wearable World Inc.http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssTue, 03 Mar 2015 12:21:24 -0800Why Pinterest Is Banning Affiliate Links<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>Pinterest has lowered the hammer on affiliate links—a way for social-media users to make a small commission in return for recommending a product. Ostensibly, the move helps keep the site tidy. But unsurprisingly, money is also involved.</p><p>According to <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AnaHoffman/posts/iKMEuPPBPJd">an email</a> many pinners received Thursday, Pinterest is removing all affiliate links on "pins," the Pinterest term for a image-centric post. The pins themselves will remain live, but Pinterest is officially encouraging users to find other means of making money on the visually oriented social network.</p><p>Pinterest has been removing affiliate links for some time. But as the email outlines, it had made an exception for two fashion affiliate programs, RewardStyle and HelloSociety. Pinners enrolled in these programs would make a small cut when people clicked on pin links that included the pinner’s affiliate ID and made a purchase. It's probable that these two programs were permitted longer than others were because they deal chiefly with fashion and design related links—two of Pinterest's most popular subjects—and exclusively limit who can sign up to join, which likely reduced spam.&nbsp;</p><p>"We’re making this change for a few reasons: removing redirects and affiliates will keep Pinterest running quickly, smoothly, and prevent Rich Pins from breaking,” the email said.</p><blockquote tml-render-layout="inline"><p><strong>See also: </strong><a href="http://readwrite.com/2015/02/12/pinterest-apple-partner-app-pin"><strong>Pinterest, Apple Partner To Make Apps Easier To Find</strong></a></p></blockquote><p><a href="https://business.pinterest.com/en/rich-pins">Rich pins</a>, a type of pinned image that automatically features relevant information—say, a map, address and phone number for a "place pin"—depend on an accurate link in order to fill in metadata. According to Pinterest, an affiliate ID tagged onto a link could mess with that instant process. </p><p>This isn’t the first time Pinterest has restricted organic behavior on its platform in an effort to improve performance. Last year, the company heavily restricted “<a href="https://www.pinterest.com/sweepslovers/pin-it-to-win-it-pinterest-promotions/">Pin It To Win It</a>” contests held by brands. While the site originally allowed brands to encourage pinners to repin the same picture of a prize over and over in order to raffle it off, Pinterest later changed its mind. </p><p>From&nbsp;the Pinterest <a href="https://business.pinterest.com/en/brand-guidelines">guidelines for brands</a>:&nbsp;“Don’t… Require people to add Pins from a selection—let them add what they like.” From the site's perspective,&nbsp;hundreds of people repinning a picture of, say, a purse can mislead Pinterest’s algorithms, potentially assigning that pin undeserved importance in its relevance score. Affiliate linking can likewise lead to spam and bad algorithmic inferences.&nbsp;</p><p>While <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-bans-affiliate-links-2015-2">some Pinterest users are upset</a> that they will no longer enjoy small commissions, this isn’t a move likely to bother power pinners. Many of Pinterest’s most popular users opt for <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/christine-martinez-pinterest-fashion-interview/">approved brand partnerships</a>, in which they guest-pin items on a brand’s pinboard, and encourage their millions of followers to check it out.&nbsp;</p><blockquote tml-render-layout="inline"><p><strong>See also: <a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/05/30/pinterest-history-monetization">How Pinterest Is Slowly Learning How To Make Money</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>Furthermore, with news that Pinterest is working to implement a “Buy” button in mere months, as <a href="http://recode.net/2015/02/12/pinterest-is-working-on-a-plan-to-introduce-a-buy-button-as-soon-as-this-year/">Recode reports</a>, it’s hard not to draw a connection. By retiring user commissions, Pinterest is paving a path to potentially draw commissions for itself on every product recommendation made.&nbsp;</p><p>Pinterest has told ReadWrite that its primary motive is to make it easy for pinners to find useful, relevant images, but the company has got to be feeling the pressure from its many investors.&nbsp;<a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/05/15/pinterest-funding-5-billion-valuation">Valuated at $5 billion last May</a>, it’s about time for the company to indicate that it’s finally ready to make money on its own.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Update</strong>: In a statement to ReadWrite, Pinterest said the affiliate link ban is purely about user experience.&nbsp;</p><p>"This is not about monetization, this is 100% about the Pinner experience and ensuring relevant content on Pinterest," a spokesperson said.</p><p><em>Photo courtesy of Pinterest</em></p>We can think of two good reasons. One involves dollar signs.http://readwrite.com/2015/02/13/pinterest-affiliate-links-ban-money-spam-algorithms
http://readwrite.com/2015/02/13/pinterest-affiliate-links-ban-money-spam-algorithmsSocialFri, 13 Feb 2015 08:33:09 -0800Lauren OrsiniGoogle To Developers: Here’s How To Score Big On Google Play<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01bc5a1920012a83" tml-image-caption=""><figure><img src="http://a1.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTI1MDczOTM3MjQyNjkwODM0.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>Android developers, you too can have break-out success in Google Play—and Google itself wants to show you the way. The creator of the mobile software and its related app store has put together a <a href="http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2014/11/introducing-new-guide-secrets-to-app.html">game plan to help app makers</a> make it big using its resources.</p><p>Perhaps anyone can write an app and push it into the store. But the company emphasizes that those are just the first steps. After all, it’s hard to stand out amid <a href="http://www.appbrain.com/stats/number-of-android-apps">more than 1.3 million Google Play apps</a>.&nbsp;According to the company's blog, the tome is "a detailed playbook on the best practices and tools you can use to maximize the reach, retention, and revenue of your new app.”</p><blockquote><p><strong>See also: <a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/10/30/ok-google-searches-apps-developers-android">OK, Google—Search Inside My Apps!</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>The main idea is to help developers understand Google’s guidelines and to offer tips for making their apps stand out, analyzing their traffic and turning a profit: </p><ul><li><em>Publishing on Google Play—using the Google Play Developer Console to distribute your app to over 1 billion Android users worldwide.</em></li><li><em>Quality—The fundamentals of building a great app and an insight into the Google Play guidelines and policies.</em></li><li><em>Discoverability &amp; reach—Maximizing your app's discoverability and reaching the widest audience possible.</em></li><li><em>Engagement &amp; retention—Converting installations into active users and improving user retention.</em></li><li><em>Monetization—Monetization strategies to generate ongoing, growing revenue streams.</em></li><li><em>Measurement with Google Analytics—Understanding your users and improving your app experience, conversions, and marketing.</em></li><li><em>Going global—Launching your app in local markets around the world.</em></li></ul><div tml-image="ci01bee89120012a83" tml-image-caption=""><figure><img src="http://a2.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,w_620/MTI1NzkzNTQ4ODEyNDU4NDYy.png" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>In truth, the secret formula—available as a <a href="http://developer.android.com/shareables/distribute/play_dev_guide_secrets_en.pdf">PDF file</a>, a <a href="http://goo.gl/DFjbrS">Google Play download</a> or even <a href="http://goo.gl/Tqj7TS">a print edition</a>—isn’t really that much of a secret. In fact, much of the information here can be culled from other places, like its <a href="https://play.google.com/apps/publish/signup/">Android developer portal</a>. But at least it's handy having the information organized in one place.&nbsp;</p><p>Google offers a limited run of the print version for free to people in the U.S. and U.K. Other countries, it says, are coming soon. </p><p>The move may look like a magnanimous gesture on Google’s part, but it’s also obviously part of its general Android evangelism, as it works to attract even more development in Google’s mobile ecosystem—a platform that’s still trying to shake its reputation as a lackluster moneymaker relative to Apple's App Store.</p><p>As it turns out, Google Play is doing a pretty good job growing up into <a href="http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2013/11/18/google-give-play-store-not-just-facebook-apple-credit-says-citi/">a genuine profit center</a>. Citigroup analyst Mark May estimated that Google Play revenue could jump from $1.3 billion in 2013 to $5.2 billion in 2017. </p><p>Although that's still well behind <a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/01/07App-Store-Sales-Top-10-Billion-in-2013.html">the $10-billion-dollar App Store</a>, one thing is clear: There’s money to be made in Android apps, if you know how. And Google aims to teach you.</p><p><em>Feature image courtesy of <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com">Shutterstock</a></em></p>Google releases game plan for succeeding with Android apps.http://readwrite.com/2014/11/06/android-app-google-how-to-succeed-guide-google-play
http://readwrite.com/2014/11/06/android-app-google-how-to-succeed-guide-google-playMobileThu, 06 Nov 2014 12:08:22 -0800Adriana LeeFacebook Ads Are About To Start Following You Everwhere<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01b2794e50016d19" tml-image-caption=""><figure><img src="http://a5.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMjkzNTE1NTM4NDMyNjE0.jpg" /><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div><p>Facebook ads may soon start following you everywhere. On Tuesday, <a href="https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2014/10/07/audience-network">the company announced</a> that the Facebook Audience Network, <a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/04/30/facebook-ad-network">announced at F8 in April</a>, is available to the world.</p><p>This new ad network lets Facebook serve up targeted ads to mobile users wherever they are, using their Facebook data as a way to target specific interests or demographics. It also lets advertisers extend their Facebook ad campaigns into other applications. It will compete with Google's AdMob advertising network, though Facebook has more personal data on users than Google does, and thus could theoretically give advertisers better targeting options.</p><blockquote><p><strong>See also: <a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/04/30/facebook-ad-network">Now Facebook Can Beam Targeted Ads At You Wherever You Are</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>Given that <a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/09/29/facebook-google-targeted-advertising-personal-data-cookies">Facebook already runs its ads on other websites</a>&nbsp;via its&nbsp;Atlas advertising platform<a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/09/29/facebook-google-targeted-advertising-personal-data-cookies"></a>,&nbsp;you can expect to see highly-targeted Facebook ads just about everywhere. It might be helpful, considering advertisements based on your personal data might appeal more to you—for instance, I usually see ads for fashion companies on Facebook, which I find more helpful than ads for gym memberships.</p><p>Developers can also use the ad network to provide “native advertising” to users, a tactic for making ads look more like they're part of an app's information itself. </p><p>“We’re really big believers in native advertising as a product," Sriram Kirshnan, product manager of the Audience Network, said in an interview. "For example if you look at the ads on Facebook’s own news feed, they look like any other organic content on Facebook. We’ve been able to take the idea of native ads, and bring it broadly to all developers through the Audience Network.”</p><blockquote><p><strong>See also:&nbsp;<a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/09/29/facebook-google-targeted-advertising-personal-data-cookies">Facebook Wants To Be Creepier Than Google With Your Data</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>But now just like on the Web, advertisers will be able to use your data to distribute ads. That won't just be native advertising that Facebook supports, but also banners that appear at the bottom of the app, and full-screen ads that take up your entire screen. Personalized, yes, but no less annoying. </p><h2>How To Join The Audience Network</h2><p>For advertisers, it’s easy—they'll build an ad campaign in Facebook, and then select a new checkbox that says, “Make available to partner networks.” Then ads will be shown both on Facebook proper and in third-party apps.</p><p>Developers can <a href="https://developers.facebook.com/docs/audience-network">sign up with Facebook</a> and download the software development kit to get started on the Audience Network. Then by writing a few lines of code and integrating the SDK, apps can start running Facebook-powered apps.&nbsp;</p><p><em>Lead image by Selena Larson for ReadWrite</em></p>Even into non-Facebook apps.http://readwrite.com/2014/10/07/facebook-audience-ad-network-open
http://readwrite.com/2014/10/07/facebook-audience-ad-network-openSocialTue, 07 Oct 2014 08:00:00 -0700Selena LarsonPinterest Wants You To Be Your Own Advertiser<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01b2797590006d19" tml-render-position="center" tml-render-size="large"><figure><img src="http://a5.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,w_620/MTIyMjkzNjg0Mzg0MzI4OTg1.png" /></figure></div><p>Pinterest’s Promoted Pins are great for big brands, but what about medium to small ones? Now there’s an offering scaled just to them—a new&nbsp;<a href="https://ads.pinterest.com/">do-it-yourself Promoted Pins tool</a>.</p><p>Pinterest for Business was launched 18 months ago and in that time the social discovery platform has made it so anyone, from big-time corporations to teensy personal blogs, can sign up for a business account. Since last October, Pinterest has been testing Promoted Pins, a way for those businesses to pay for their pins to show up in relevant searches and user feeds. Promoted Pins don't come cheap though—Ad Age reports that Pinterest is looking for <a href="http://adage.com/article/digital/pinterest-launches-paid-ads-kraft-gap/293142/">$1 to $2 million commitments</a> for cost-per-impression deals.&nbsp;</p><p>Needless to say, small businesses don’t exactly have millions to spend. A self-serve alternative may be a simple way for Pinterest to scale its offering.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>Is This Pinterest’s “Wild West” Moment?</strong></h2><p>Pinterest’s Promoted Pins ad product costs quite a bit. My recent conversation with Joanne Bradford, head of partnerships at Pinterest, shed a bit of light onto why.&nbsp;</p><p>“Partnerships [with brands] aren’t just, ‘Go get ad dollars.’ That’s not how we think about it here," she said. "We’re really about teaching partners how to be their best on Pinterest."</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also</strong><a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/05/30/pinterest-history-monetization#awesm=~oGkxmiT50plam1"><strong>: </strong><strong>How Pinterest Is Slowly Learning To Make Money</strong></a></p></blockquote><p>Outreach takes time and manpower. It’s a work in progress and Bradford <a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/05/30/pinterest-history-monetization#awesm=~oGkQcCMzs02kGg">continues to hire</a> community managers all over the globe. Partnerships that require educating companies are, by definition, not very scalable.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>In that regard, self-serve ads for the masses are the fast and dirty approach. That's essentially how Google made most of its money with its keyword auction real-time bidding network. For Pinterest, instead of initially coaching companies on how to best use the platform, it can just monitor the ads from small and medium businesses as they come in.&nbsp;</p><p>Unlike Promoted Pins, Pinterest's new self-service ad platform is cost-per-click, not cost-per-impression. With that sort of pricing model comes a certain kind of desperation from would-be ad buyers. If you look at the companies on Facebook and Google who use cost-per-click, they’re less about “beautiful” and more “made you look.” Anything goes in the Wild West.</p><p>“In the absence of a formalized ad channel, social networks are like the Wild West,” said&nbsp;Apu Gupta, CEO of Visual Web analytics platform Curalate. “Brands do whatever they want to garner attention—whether or not it's in keeping with what the networks aspire to. I believe that creating a formalized channel for placing ads will ultimately help prevent spam by enabling Pinterest to monitor what types of ads go out.”</p><p>Of course, Pinterest isn’t going into this blindly. Don Faul, Pinterest's head of operations who oversaw the new tool’s development, formerly launched the self-serve ad tool at Facebook in 2008. Dozens of Pinterest employees came from Facebook. Still others came from one of the other largest self-serve ad platforms, Google—including CEO Ben Silbermann. They have seen firsthand what happens when cost-per-click ads get ugly. Perhaps they’re trying for a redo.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>A Need For Speed</strong></h2><p>The self-serve Promoted Pins tool isn’t officially open for business. Right now you can register to be on the wait list. According to Pinterest, only a few small to medium brands <a href="http://business.pinterest.com/en/blog/new-tools-businesses">are testing it</a>.&nbsp;</p><p>It’s par for the course for Pinterest to go slow and steady on new features. But when you consider that Pinterest tested the first Promoted Pins for six months prior to launch, the announcement of a self-serve tool two months later seems downright speedy.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also: </strong><strong><a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/10/09/first-look-at-pinterests-promoted-pins#awesm=~oGkxvhKa8z1AOQ">Pinterest Rolls Out 'Promoted Pins' Ads—But No Advertisers</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>There are two reasons this might be happening, one good and one bad.</p><p>Starting with the negative, perhaps Promoted Pins have not performed to Pinterest's expectations. Asking for $1 to $2 million is a lot, even for a big company, if the return on investment isn’t great enough. Since Pinterest has shown it cares more about the user’s experience than making brands happy (through conservative pin promotion and extensive audience testing), big brands might feel like they can get a better deal and more exposure somewhere else. A cheaper self-serve alternative might be just the ticket.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>On the positive side, this might be Pinterest employees’ Google roots coming out. Even today, Google ads are democratic. The search engine wasn’t built by huge brands, but by small businesses hoping for a little exposure that were willing to take a chance. Here’s an opportunity to compare Pinterest to Google yet again, as the visual search community continues to measure up.&nbsp;</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also: </strong><strong><a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/05/15/pinterest-funding-5-billion-valuation#awesm=~oGkyAElH96XFYy">Pinterest Raises A $200 Million Warchest To Do Battle With Google</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>We still know very little about the self-serve tool, as it’s only open to a select few businesses. It’s hard to tell how Pinterest will look once it opens the advertising floodgates. But if Pinterest’s past activity is any indication, it’ll be a while until that happens.</p><p><em>Photo courtesy of <a href="http://business.pinterest.com/en/blog/new-tools-businesses">Pinterest</a></em></p>Pinterest will soon be open for all businesses, no matter how big or small.http://readwrite.com/2014/06/05/pinterest-to-open-the-advertising-floodgates
http://readwrite.com/2014/06/05/pinterest-to-open-the-advertising-floodgatesSocialThu, 05 Jun 2014 13:37:00 -0700Lauren OrsiniHow Pinterest Is Slowly Learning How To Make Money<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01b2796820016d19" tml-render-position="center" tml-render-size="large"><figure><img src="http://a1.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMjkzNjI2OTM5Mjc3OTI2.jpg" /></figure></div><p>Pinterest has never been in a hurry to convert investor dollars into financial gains—and given that it's <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/pinterest">raised close to three-quarters of a billion dollars</a> over the past five years, it hasn't needed to be.&nbsp;</p><p>But the visual social pinboard is finally getting serious about making money. Last winter, it hired former <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em> president Joanne Bradford, who today serves as head of commercial and content partnerships at Pinterest.</p><p></p><div tml-image="ci01b2814270038266" tml-image-caption="Joanne Bradford, photo courtesy of Pinterest." tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="small"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzAyMjYxNDM0MTU1NjIy.jpg" /><figcaption>Joanne Bradford, photo courtesy of Pinterest.</figcaption></figure></div><p>Now that Bradford's been at Pinterest for six months, the site's commercial strategy is becoming clearer. This month, her team unveiled the latest stage of "<a href="http://business.pinterest.com/en/news/next-phase-promoted-pins">promoted pins</a>," which are essentially advertiser-sponsored versions of the image-based bookmarks—known as "pins"—that Pinterest users put up and share on the site.</p><p>“The Pinterest mission is to help people discover things,” Bradford told me in a recent interview. “Promoted pins help people discover, and help brands be discovered.”</p><h2><strong>Second Time’s A Charm</strong></h2><p>Pinterest's promoted-pins strategy has been extremely cautious.&nbsp;When the company first announced promoted pins last September, shortly before hiring Bradford, the sponsored pins blended right into the woodwork of the site. A promoted pin for a camping lantern would be almost indistinguishable from the regular rustic images that come up on a search for “hiking.”&nbsp;</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also: </strong><strong><a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/10/09/first-look-at-pinterests-promoted-pins#awesm=~oFtITLGlJKIM4M">Pinterest Rolls Out 'Promoted Pins' Ads—But No Advertisers</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>The origin of that incrementalist approach to advertising traces back to an early Pinterest misstep in February 2012. Back then, the site was so small it didn’t have a PR department. So when Pinterest did some quiet experimentation with automatic affiliate linking—that is, by adding tracking code to pins that linked to e-commerce sites, a technique that could be used to generate revenue—it didn't disclose what it was up to.</p><p>Then&nbsp;pinners such as technology blogger <a href="http://llsocial.com/2012/02/pinterest-modifying-user-submitted-pins/">Josh Davis</a>&nbsp;discovered the automatic affiliate links and criticized the site for allegedly profiting off of user’s pins without telling anyone. The whole affair <a href="http://llsocial.com/2012/02/pinterest-adds-disclosure-and-info-from-ceo/">blew up into a mini-scandal</a>, prompting Pinterest co-founder and CEO&nbsp;Ben Silbermann to call Davis and explain the testing process.</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also: </strong><strong><a href="about:blank">Pinterest's Second Attempt At Making Money Actually Sounds Smart</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>Ever since, Pinterest has been extremely wary about maintaining the trust of its pinners. You can see how that's played out with promoted pins, which Bradford described as an idea shaped by surveying lots of users. It's not just about making sure users are aware of how Pinterest makes money, but that it's making money in a way that won't squick out users the way affiliate links did.</p><p>“Promoted pins [are] the result of much testing,” she said. “You can only find the pins in searches and category feeds right now, where they’re most relevant and [least intrusive.] It’s the result of a lot of pinner and marketer feedback.”&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>Slow And Steady</strong></h2><p>In September, promoted pins highlighted images for testing purposes. Beginning this May, promoted pins from <a href="http://business.pinterest.com/en/news/next-phase-promoted-pins">an initial set of 12 advertisers</a> will begin appearing in Pinterest categories and search results.&nbsp;</p><p>From ABC Family to Walt Disney, they’re brands you’ve already heard of, which is probably why Pinterest selected them. Bradford noted that 93 out of the world’s top 100 brands have accounts on Pinterest, and there’s lots of advertiser demand for promoted pins.&nbsp;</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also:&nbsp;</strong><strong><a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/05/15/pinterest-funding-5-billion-valuation#awesm=~oFtFEFu3M5ICa2">Pinterest Raises A $200 Million Warchest To Do Battle With Google</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>“Brands find Pinterest to be a rich canvas to tell their stories,” she said. “We’re very flexible. Search and display ads are a little bit confined in how you can tell your story to consumers.”</p><p>Even though promoted pins will only show up in particular parts of the site, opening the floodgates to all brands without alienating users might be tricky. Even Facebook and Twitter haven't find a way to promote companies that doesn’t jar users out of their browsing experiences. So, as usual, Pinterest is currently opting for transparency and testing.</p><p>Bradford’s current plan is to help those advertisers learn how to best use Pinterest. Ideally, brands will then providing the kind of pins users like to see, making their promoted pins look less like ads and more like everyday shared images.</p><p>“Partnerships [with brands] aren’t just, ‘Go get ad dollars.’ That’s not how we think about it here," Bradford says. "We’re really about teaching partners how to be their best on Pinterest and connect consumers in a very authentic way.”</p>Pinterest has seen firsthand what happens when users don't trust your service. So it's taking things slowly on the moneymaking front.http://readwrite.com/2014/05/30/pinterest-history-monetization
http://readwrite.com/2014/05/30/pinterest-history-monetizationWebFri, 30 May 2014 07:02:00 -0700Lauren Orsini4 Ways Google Can Help Indie Android App Developers Get Noticed<!-- tml-version="2" --><p></p><div tml-image="ci01b27a2420018266" tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><figure><img src="http://a4.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMjk0NDM0MzkyOTkzMDQ5.jpg" /></figure></div><p><em>Guest author&nbsp;Robert Weber is the co-founder and senior vice president of business development at NativeX.</em></p><p>Google recently introduced <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-applications/6-google-play-rule-changes/d/d-id/1141610">an important new rule</a> prohibiting deceptive promotion of apps on Google Play. It is good that Google is clamping down on spammy advertising. However, the new regulation doesn’t really address a core, underlying cause for why deceptive app advertising exists: practice: broken app discovery.</p><p>The fact that more than<a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/08/20/the-harsh-reality-for-mobile-developers-trying-to-hit-the-top-of-app-store-charts#awesm=~oDqciTgZ67lp0j"> two-thirds of apps fail to break even</a>, it’s no surprise that some independent developers desperately turn to sketchy advertising practices or automated bot farms to manipulate rankings. Of course, Apple’s App Store struggles with the same woes as well, but given that Google’s core competency is content discovery, it’s fair for the market to expect much more from the Google Play Android app store.</p><p>With that in mind, here are four actions that Google could take to help indie developers get discovered and make more money with Android apps on Google Play.</p><h2>Rankings, Lists, Ratings And Profiles</h2><p><strong>Reform The Ranking System:</strong> At the moment, Google Play’s “Top Apps” lists are too directly tied to advertising spend. The more app publishers spend on advertising, the more downloads they get and the higher on the lists they are. Most indie developers don’t have a large advertising budgets to compete on this playing field. To make things even harder for indie developers, many Google Play users only download apps from these Top Apps lists. One solution is to create indie-only lists (see below). Google could also tweak its general ranking algorithms to give more prominence to apps gaining traction without ad dollars.</p><p><strong>Address The 5-Star Problem:</strong> Similar to the crippled ranking lists, many or most apps with consistent 5 star ratings got them not through organic acclaim, but by working the system. (One common, if very dubious technique: An app prompt asks users if they like the app, but are only taken to the app store to post a review if they answer “Yes”.) It will probably take months to fix star ratings and rankings. But there’s other, simpler features Google Play can introduce now to help level the playing field:</p><p><strong>Create Indie-Only Top App Lists And Badges:</strong> Is it fair that it takes over $100,000 in advertising to achieve enough visibility to grow organically? For every out-of-the-blue indie hit like Flappy Birds, thousands of other quality apps languish unseen. Google can help fix this to give app makers a more level playing field. &nbsp;To do that, Google could consider duplicating Top App lists only featuring indie developers. That could attract more volume for those with limited budgets. (There are many ways Google could define what constitutes an “indie” developer, but the underlying goal is to highlight apps made by small teams on limited budgets.) For similar reasons, apps designated as indie could have a badge or other special icon which affirms that status. This would also give indie titles an underdog appeal to consumers searching for original games to play.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Indie Developer Profiles:</strong> Related to the above, I’d love to see Google Play add a profile feature which allows indie developers to literally put a face to their apps. Doing this would instantly add a human interest element to Android’s app ecosystem and help create stronger ties to developers and consumers who love their games. (Consider how important the personal element has been to the success of Kickstarter projects.)</p><p>Even if Google were to implement all these changes, it would not necessarily guarantee sunshine and roses for app developers. With such a large market to compete in, most apps will<a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/08/20/the-harsh-reality-for-mobile-developers-trying-to-hit-the-top-of-app-store-charts#awesm=~oDqciTwZ2Bz912"> still fail.</a>&nbsp;Google Play is still a capitalistic market, after all.&nbsp;But with the “bad guy” advertisers handcuffed, indie developers at least have much more peace of mind. For now, they can work with ad networks which monetize in a brand safe, transparent, user-friendly way. Google just needs to capitalize on this move by also helping devs at the discovery level. That way, well-deserving, low budget games—no matter how much their big budget competitors spend—have less incentive to turn to the next shady ad practice.</p>In the big business of app discovery, little developers get left behind.http://readwrite.com/2014/05/06/google-play-android-app-discovery-advertising
http://readwrite.com/2014/05/06/google-play-android-app-discovery-advertisingMobileTue, 06 May 2014 10:03:00 -0700Robert WeberHow Ads In Mobile Apps Could Send Facebook's Revenue Soaring<!-- tml-version="2" --><p></p><div tml-image="ci01b2811f80018266" tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><figure><img src="http://a1.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzAyMTExMzc4NjA0NjQ2.jpg" /></figure></div><p><em><a href="http://readwrite.com/series/the-platform#awesm=~oD1tm5S3iRaiUZ">The Platform</a> is a regular column by mobile editor Dan Rowinski. Ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence and pervasive networks are changing the way humans interact with everything.</em></p><p>Amid all of Mark Zuckerberg’s iconoclasm Wednesday at Facebook's F8 developer conference, it was easy to miss the biggest news for the company—and the mobile world it hopes to dominate.</p><p>Yes, throwing out Facebook's “move fast and break things” philosophy is significant,<a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/04/30/facebook-privacy-anonymity-login#awesm=~oD1uImIgFzfuO9"> as is anonymous login</a>. But of far more financial consequence, both for Facebook and the developers it courted at F8, is the Facebook Audience Network.</p><h2>Facebook May Finally Have A Google-Like Ad Product</h2><p>It may well prove to be the equivalent of Google’s AdWords and AdSense products. On their face, when Google introduced them, they seemed like simple tools for buying targeted ads (AdWords, in 2000) and placing them on other websites (AdSense, in 2003). But they proved to be powerful financial engines, ones that still fuel the company’s growth more than a decade later.</p><p><a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/04/30/facebook-ad-network#feed=/author/selena-larson&amp;awesm=~oD1t3DrvUBbtaG">The Facebook Audience Network</a>—Facebook’s new advertising product—could be the biggest idea that the social network has ever produced. While it failed to reinvent advertising on the desktop, where Google dominates, Facebook has a shot at doing so in mobile.</p><p>It’s easy to overlook developments in advertising and marketing technology. On a day-to-day basis, the only people who really care about it are advertisers, publishers, and the companies building advertising technology. I’ve purposefully avoided writing about ad tech for years, because, to be quite honest, nobody really gives a damn.</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"></blockquote><p><strong>Quick Thought: Facebook App-Linking The Competition</strong></p><p>The other news that has people talking from F8 yesterday is the company’s new “<a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/05/01/facebook-deep-links-apps-mobile-web#awesm=~oD1sQdCTpFhC1u">App Links</a>” proposal. Essentially, Facebook is trying to create the same type of linking URL structure for mobile apps on iOS and Android that has long existed on the Web.</p><p>First, we must acknowledge that links between apps has definitely been a problem for developers. Mobile leads itself to a fragmented Web where apps function as their own little individual fiefdoms, not connected to the outside world or each other. App Links wants to solve that.</p><p>But, as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/problem-with-facebook-app-link-2014-5">Jay Yarow from Business Insider correctly points out</a>, why would Apple and Google just let Facebook waltz in to become the de facto middleware for mobile app developers? Facebook wants to control the pipes between mobile apps (like it does on the Web), but Google and Apple have far more control over their own operating systems than they do on the Web.</p><p>With Google I/O and Apple’s WWDC coming up soon, we may see the platform operators crush Facebook’s dream of App Links before it even takes off. Only a strong embrace by developers, whom Apple and Google desperately want to please, will give App Links a shot.</p><p>But here I am, writing about ad tech on <a href="http://readwrite.com/series/the-platform#awesm=~oD1vxuquz6nPi0">The Platform</a> for the second time in a week. Why? Because we are beginning to see an epochal shift in how advertisers handle mobile. With its Audience Network, Facebook has launched an economic engine that could make a huge difference for the company’s own revenues and the bottom lines of app publishers, brands, and advertisers.&nbsp;</p><p>As noted in The Platform earlier this week, <a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/04/29/mobile-advertising-trends-future-programmatic-contextual#feed=/series/the-platform&amp;awesm=~oD1vkvNSDqC7jW">programmatic ad buying mixed with contextual computing</a> is beginning to turn mobile advertising into a viable medium. Facebook knows more about its users than just about any other company outside of Google—and arguably more, since Google's efforts to force its users to log in via Google+ have met resistance, while Facebook’s users are always logged in.&nbsp;</p><h2>Facebook Ads, Off Facebook</h2><p>Facebook will now be able to sell personalized, targeted ads off of Facebook and into the rest of the mobile application ecosystem. The goal of the Audience Network is to provide a way to monetize apps across iOS, Android, and soon Windows Phone. Just as Facebook moved to spread itself across the Web with Facebook Login and the “Like” button, it’s now doing the same for mobile—with advertising dollars as the lure.&nbsp;</p><p>The dirty secret of Facebook’s advertising business to date is that social advertising, which it <a href="http://readwrite.com/2007/11/06/facebook_unveils_ad_strategy">launched to much fanfare in 2007</a>, hasn’t paid off. Instead, it has succeeded mostly through its unprecedented scale. Advertisers can’t ignore its 1.28 billion monthly active users, which produced nearly $8 billion in revenues in 2013. It is still growing quickly: It pulled in $2.5 billion in the first quarter of this year and is solidly profitable. Yet while Facebook holds its place in the pantheon of Internet giants, its revenue and employee base are actually quite small compared to the likes of Google or Amazon, which made $15.4 billion and $19.74 billion last quarter respectively.</p><p>To put it in perspective, Facebook is just a little bigger than Google was in 2005, a year after the search company’s IPO. That’s when Google’s maturing advertising technologies really started printing money, adding $4.5 billion in revenues in 2006, $6 billion in 2007, and $5 billion in 2008.</p><p>Facebook has the opportunity to take advantage of the new mobile era of computing to build its own dollar-stacking empire, if everything falls into place.</p><p>Consider that Facebook's own mobile ad revenue, generated through its own apps, was about $1.33 billion in the first quarter of 2014, about 59% of its total advertising revenue. Just a few years ago, that number was zero: Facebook didn’t sell ads on mobile at all. The Audience Network could take that mobile revenue to the next level.</p><blockquote tml-render-position="left" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>Quote Of The Day:</strong> “This is a world where people eschew sex to write a programming language for orangutans. All programmers are forcing their brains to do things brains were never meant to do in a situation they can never make better, ten to fifteen hours a day, five to seven days a week, and every one of them is slowly going mad.” ~ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008DZEWF8">Author Peter Welch</a> in a brilliant essay dubbed “<a href="http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks">Programming Sucks</a>” on <a href="http://stilldrinking.org/">StillDrinking.org</a>.</p></blockquote><p>Advertisers, developers, brands and publishers—basically, every stakeholder in the advertising game—have long waited for Facebook to make the move to bring its advertising off its own platform and into the rest of the connected world. The Audience Network does not invade the Web, as of yet, which is likely wise: Why take on Google in its stronghold, when Facebook can dominate a faster-growing business?</p><p>The potential could be profound. As of yet, no company has fully cracked the realm of mobile advertising to reap the type of profits that Google’s AdWords eureka brought it on the Web. There’s a lot to like here.&nbsp;</p><p><em>Photo of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Selena Larson for ReadWrite</em></p>Facebook now has products akin to those that sent Google’s ad sales to the moon.http://readwrite.com/2014/05/01/facebook-audience-network-mobile-advertising-revenues
http://readwrite.com/2014/05/01/facebook-audience-network-mobile-advertising-revenuesMobileThu, 01 May 2014 11:03:00 -0700Dan RowinskiAmazon Creates New Way For Developers To Monetize Apps<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01b282e630016d19" tml-render-position="center" tml-render-size="large"><figure><img src="http://a3.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzA0MDYzNzA5Njc2MTM0.jpg" /></figure></div><p>Amazon is extending its might in the world of ecommerce to the world of mobile apps. Today, Amazon announced that its popular and long-running Associates program<a href="https://developer.amazon.com/post/Tx1IHGY6BIA4ZWM/Announcing-the-Amazon-Mobile-Associates-API-Earn-Advertising-Fees-by-Selling-Pro.html"> is coming to apps for Android and its Kindle Fire</a> tablet available in the Amazon Appstore and Google Play.</p><p>You might be unfamiliar with the Amazon Associates program. But there is a good chance you have run across it on the Web. Amazon Associates is a program where websites can advertise Amazon products by placing a unique URL into website text that links back to a product on Amazon. Every time a user clicks on that link and makes a purchase, the Associate gets paid.&nbsp;</p><p>The Associates program is not new and has been shrouded in a bit of controversy in its time. As yet though, Amazon had not instituted Associates in its own Appstore. Today’s announcement changes that.</p><p>And it makes perfect sense.&nbsp;</p><p>Extending Amazon Associates to apps opens up a new type of revenue stream for developers that was not available before. Making money with apps is not an easy proposition. Developers can institute a variety of banner or rich media ads into their apps, set up “in-app purchases” (based on the “freemium” model of mobile monetization) or offer subscriptions to their services.</p><p><a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=1850021&amp;highlight">Amazon calls the new program Mobile Associates</a> and it is available as an application programming interface (API) for mobile developers in both Google Play and the Amazon Appstore.</p><h2>How Amazon Mobile Associates Works</h2><p>Amazon Mobile Associates works in three ways; “selling a single item from within an app or game, showcasing a category of goods, or bundling the purchase of physical goods with the purchase of digital goods,” according to Amazon’s press release.&nbsp;</p><p>In essence, Amazon is extending its physical and digital world of goods into the world of Android apps. This is not just relegated to the Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore, but also apps available through the Android Google Play app store.&nbsp;</p><p>The Mobile Associates program works pretty much like Amazon Associates. When a user clicks on a product link in an app, they are shown a dialog box with the product information and cost. If the user then makes a purchase, the Mobile Associate gets paid 6% of the sale price.</p><p>All the normal Amazon commerce features are present, such as free shipping with Amazon Prime and 1-Click purchasing.&nbsp;</p><p>For developers, Amazon describes integration of the API as a fairly simple process:</p><blockquote><p>Initialize the Mobile Associates API, and tell us what you’re selling--you can choose to supply a specific set of ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Number), search terms, or use the Amazon Product Advertising API to query a list of ASINs and product information.</p></blockquote><h2>The Unique Amazon Mobile Position</h2><p>Mobile Associates is a no-brainer. It further moves features of the Web into the world of mobile. It is a logistical move from Amazon and an astute decision. On its surface, Mobile Associates is a bit of a ho-hum type of announcement.</p><p>Mobile Associates should not be overlooked as just another Amazon feature coming to apps. Essentially what Amazon has done is create a fourth type of monetization for app developers. That is not to be understated. In this burgeoning era of mobile, nobody has really figured out a sure-fire method for making money through apps. The top developers make money through sheer volume on banner ads and subscriptions and in-app payments.&nbsp;</p><p>Amazon Associates has been available since 1996 and has long been a way for smaller publishers or individual blog owners to scratch out a few extra bucks. Bigger websites that use Amazon Associates can see significant revenue. It is a way to create another revenue stream that is not dependent on Google AdWords or other banner ad providers.&nbsp;</p><p>Mobile Associates could be powerful, especially for the thousands of ecommerce apps on Android. Imagine a Pinterest user creating the ability to link one of their lists to the Amazon ecommerce platform. That could be good for both Pinterest and its app users and would take very little effort to institute in the app.&nbsp;</p>Amazon brings its Associates program to mobile developers. It could have a bigger impact than you'd think.http://readwrite.com/2013/08/27/amazon-creates-new-way-for-developers-to-monetize-apps-with-mobile-associates-program
http://readwrite.com/2013/08/27/amazon-creates-new-way-for-developers-to-monetize-apps-with-mobile-associates-programMobileTue, 27 Aug 2013 07:17:00 -0700Dan RowinskiMaking Android Pay: 5 Tips To Topping The Charts On Google Play<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01b2827ba0018266" tml-render-position="center" tml-render-size="large"><figure><img src="http://a3.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzAzNjA2Mjk1NjUzNjU3.jpg" /></figure></div><p><em>This post is the third in the ReadWrite series&nbsp;<a href="http://readwrite.com/series/making-android-pay/">Making Android Pay</a>, focusing&nbsp;on the opportunities and challenges that mobile developers face trying to make money from Android Apps.</em></p><p>In the waning hours of the <a href="http://readwrite.com/tag/google+io2013/">Google I/O developers conference</a> last week, an Android developer stood at a microphone to ask a very pertinent question: “If I am in the top 2% of Android apps on Google Play, how much money am I really making? $30 a month? $3,000? $300,000?”</p><p>The two poor Google product managers on stage couldn't or wouldn't give him an answer. They declined to cite revenue of other Android apps on Google Play’s top lists. They refused to share a general number of how much successful Android apps earn. The two Googlers, Ibrahim Elbouchikhi (product manager of Google Play Commerce) and Bob Meese (Google Play games business development), had highlighted earlier in their session that average revenue per user had more than doubled in Google Play in 2012.</p><p>But the developer in the audience was essentially saying was that twice zero was still zero.</p><h2>To The Winners Go The Spoils</h2><p>Unless your apps are massively popular on Google Play, it is very difficult to make a good living with Android app development.&nbsp;Developers building apps for Apple’s iOS still make more money than those building for Android, and Apple’s download rate is considerably higher (50 billion for iOS against 48 billion for Android) despite Apple’s considerably smaller installed base).</p><p>During their session, Elbouchikhi and Meese gave developers several tips on how to make money from Android. The focus was on two specific topics: games and the top lists in Google Play.&nbsp;</p><p>Essentially, Google is saying that you need to hit the top lists on Google Play to even have a chance at making a decent living. (Getting there is difficult, of course, but developers&nbsp;"get a lot of sales [just] from being on the top sellers list.") The top lists are almost all games - and almost all monetized via in-app purchases. Look at the top grossing apps in Google Play. Of the top 25 grossing apps currently in Google Play, 24 of them are games. The only exception is Pandora, which brings in most of its money from its subscription service.</p><p></p><div tml-image="ci01b2827c10028266" tml-image-caption="Top grossing Android apps on May 21, 2013"><figure><img src="http://a3.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzAzNjA3OTA2MjY2Mzkz.jpg" /><figcaption>Top grossing Android apps on May 21, 2013</figcaption></figure></div><p>The domination of games is not unique to Google Play. The Apple App Store's top grossing and paid sections are also filled with games. Smartphones and tablets are great for gamers, especially casual gamers. This has led us to <a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/04/11/why-mobile-game-developers-are-on-the-cusp-of-a-golden-age">believe that there is a coming golden age for game developers.&nbsp;</a></p><p></p><div tml-image="ci01b2827c90038266"><figure><img src="http://a2.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzAzNjEwNTkwNjI2NDA2.jpg" /></figure></div><p>Non-game developers may be in a bit of trouble though. Yet there <em>are</em> things that developers can do to entice their audience to pay up. The idea is to first acquire users (through a variety of means), retain them by delivering excellent apps and customer service and then turn them into passionate users. It is only then that you can ask them to pay you for your product.</p><h2>5 Keys To Android App Success</h2><p>Elbouchikhi and Meese highlighted five important aspects of Android that make it easier to monetize an app:</p><ol><li><strong>Tablets pull in 70% more revenue than smartphones:</strong> It helps to create a version of your app optimized for the tablet form factor, which Google made easier to beginning with Android 4.0, known as Ice Cream Sandwich.</li><li><strong>Employ in-app purchasing systems:</strong> In-app revenue increased seven-fold in 2012. While the "freemium" model can be manipulative, it does help developers make money from their users. Once you have created a relationship with a user, you can then hit them up for the "upgrade" (usually in games) or the subscription model (like Pandora). You'll have to deal with any ethical dilemma concerning in-app sales on your own.</li><li><strong>Subscriptions work:</strong> Android has seen 200% app subscriber revenue growth in recent quarters. This approach can work for app developers focused on businesses and enterprises, media publications or music services. Some games employ subscription models but most go for the in-app purchase freemium model. (Meese noted that almost all of the top apps are free-to-play. "The barrier to success for a paid title is very high.")&nbsp;</li><li><strong>Better ratings means more revenue:</strong> Google has done significant work to help developers get better ratings for their apps. That entails standardizing design principles for Android, working to minimize fragmentation and performance issues and letting developers reply to users who have rated their app. This critical, because the higher the rating, the more money the app earns. According to Google, apps that earn a 4- or 5-star rating average almost 29 times more revenue than do lower rated apps.</li><li><strong>Go global:</strong>&nbsp;Google realizes that most of its subscriber base is not in the United States or even in Western Europe. This is why it released its transcription service in the Google Play Developer Console at I/O last week.</li></ol><p>"I think we are at the beginning of that and we will see that beginning to happen next as people get used to the process and developers get creative in figuring out how to build those passionate users and when the right time is to ask for payment," said Ellie Powers, product manager for Google Play. "And also what are the types of things that people are willing to pay for. There are things that people are not willing to pay for and some things that they are."</p><p><em>Top photo&nbsp;</em><em>by Nick Statt</em><em>: Google's Ellie Powers introduces new Google Play Developer Console features at I/O 2013.</em></p>The top lists are everything when it comes to making money on Android and iOS. But, in case you can't hit the top lists, here are some tips to optimize revenue for your Android app.http://readwrite.com/2013/05/24/5-tips-google-play-charts-apps-android
http://readwrite.com/2013/05/24/5-tips-google-play-charts-apps-androidMobileFri, 24 May 2013 07:08:00 -0700Dan RowinskiMaking Android Pay For Developers: Checking Out The New Tools In Google Play<!-- tml-version="2" --><div tml-image="ci01b27973b0038266" tml-render-position="center" tml-render-size="large"><figure><img src="http://a3.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMjkzNjc2ODY4MTM2MjE3.jpg" /></figure></div><p><em>This post is the second in the ReadWrite series <a href="http://readwrite.com/series/making-android-pay/">Making Android Pay</a>, in which we explore the opportunities and challenges mobile developers face trying to make money from Android apps.</em></p><p>How do you get mobile developers to love you? Give them free tools and pad their wallets.&nbsp;</p><p>One of the big themes for Google last week at its <a href="http://readwrite.com/tag/google+io2013/">I/O developers conference</a> was helping developers make more money creating apps for Android. That included a variety of tools to help them engage with their users and process transactions as well as optimization tips to monetize Android.</p><p>Monetization is a big challenge for Android developers. Developers who make Android apps earn a fraction of what they make from Apple's iOS, which paid developers nearly $1 billion alone in January this year and $8 billion total as of February.&nbsp;Android developers can only dream of such riches.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>(See also <a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/05/22/how-to-monetize-for-android">How Google Is Wooing Developers to Make Apps For Android First</a>.)</strong></p><p>Yet there is hope. Google's VP of Android product management Hugo Barra <a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/05/15/google-solves-major-pain-points-for-android-devs-at-i-o">told I/O attendees last week that Google had paid</a> more to Android developers in the past 4 months than the previous 12 months before that combined. This increase has been driven by a renewed focus by Google to give developers more tools to make money, culminating in a slurry of announcements to the Google Play Developer Console last week.</p><p>"Everything from the analytics integration we have shown to you could imagine other things that Google could put together," said Ellie Powers, product manager for Google Play in an interview with ReadWrite.</p><p>Powers continued:</p><blockquote></blockquote><p>I think that is sort of the next thing. They want to have deeper insights. They want to know exactly what they should work on. And I think [with] the things that we are doing we can continue enhancing them. Developers always want more stuff. They are always really hungry and we are hearing from more and more developers. They are saying they want to invest more because you [Google] give us such great data we are able to use that to understand our users better and invest more in the Android platform.</p><h2>New Tools In The Google Play Developer Console</h2><p>Specifically,&nbsp;Google issued six new features to Google Play to help Android developers optimize towards monetization:</p><p></p><div tml-image="ci01b2827b20016d19"><figure><img src="http://a1.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzAzNjAzODc5NzM0NTUz.jpg" /></figure></div><ol><li><strong>App translation service:</strong> The ability to translate an app into a different language directly from Google Play Developer Console. This is an agency approach (human, not machine) that Google purposefully chose because it found the human touch of translations provided better results on the local level.</li><li><strong>Revenue graphs:</strong> A new tab in the Developer Console gives developers a summary of their app global app revenue over time.</li><li><strong>Alpha and beta testing and staged rollouts:</strong> Perhaps the biggest announcement for Android developers last week, beta and staged rollouts are unique to Android. This should encourage developers to take bigger risks knowing that they will not be rolling out a bug-laden app to 100% of its users.</li><li><strong>Optimization tips:</strong> Based on analytics from Google Play, optimization tips will point developers towards market segments that could benefit them, like launching in a new country or developing specifically for tablets, which make 1.7-times more revenue per user than do Android smartphones.</li><li><strong>Google Analytics:</strong> Mobile data on usage, time spent and a variety of cohorts as Google Analytics for Mobile is integrated straight into the Developer Console.</li><li><strong>Referral tracking:</strong> Where are your installs coming from? Did getting written about by the major tech publications give you a bump? How about that in-app advertising? Referral tracking will tell you.</li></ol><p></p><div tml-image="ci01b2827b90018266"><figure><img src="http://a3.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzAzNjA1NzU4Nzg4MTk4.jpg" /></figure></div><h2>More Ways To Pay: Simplifying The Billing Infrastructure</h2><p>Overlooked in the improvements made to the Google Play Developer Console were several infrastructure tweaks to the way Google processes payments for developers. The purchase flow (from app discovery to payment) has been simplified with the new user interface in Google Play, making it easier for users to pay in a variety of ways. Those include expanded gift cards and pre-paid options (which Google announced at I/O 2012 and has been improving on ever since).&nbsp;</p><p>Google is working hard to get Android users to overcome their relative reluctance to paid purchases by promoting gift cards and other pre-paid mechanisms - like Google Play promotional credits with mobile device purchases. While Google acknowledged at I/O that "the barriers to success for a paid title is very high,"&nbsp;making a purchase with a free credit seems to help encourage users to keep buying even when the credits run out.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>(See also <a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/05/15/google-solves-major-pain-points-for-android-devs-at-i-o">Google Is Making Life Easier For Android Developers</a>.)</strong></p><p>The company is also boosting options for direct-carrier billing in markets around the world. One reason for the success of Apple's App Store is that the company already has every user's credit card number. Because Google doesn't make or sell Android devices, it may not necessarily have that information. In developing markets, especially, credit cards are either non-existent or not popular. Direct-carrier billing gives Google a popular, easy-to-use payment method almost everywhere. About 50% of Android's daily active users now have access to direct-carrier billing, the company said.</p><p>"We went from having 20 countries or so that could pay to what is it? 130 or so," Powers said. "So that is amazing. I think with a lot of developers they are only thinking about people in their own countries but it turns out that there are billions of people in the world... So helping developers reach into new markets really helps there too."</p><p>From a developer's perspective, of course, it doesn't really matter what option a user pays with - as long as they pay. Google takes care of the entire payments infrastructure on the backend - the developer doesn't even need to know what option was used.&nbsp;The ongoing problem, of course, is that even with the improvements,&nbsp;Google Play still can't match the ease of use of the App Store, which licenses&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click">Amazon's 1-Click payment patent</a>. Even as Android eclipses Apple's iOS in many ways, playing catch-up in this area is likely to be an ongoing effort for Google.</p><p><em>Top image by Nick Statt: Google's Android head Sundar Pichai announces 900 million Android installations at I/O 2013.</em></p>At the Google I/O developers conference, the company announced new tools designed to help developers make money with their Android apps.http://readwrite.com/2013/05/23/monetizing-android-new-tools-in-google-play
http://readwrite.com/2013/05/23/monetizing-android-new-tools-in-google-playMobileThu, 23 May 2013 04:04:00 -0700Dan Rowinski